My use of entheogens started around the age of fourteen. Even at that early age I ingested substances in a semi-ritualized context with the intent of using them for exploring consciousness and my relation to the world and the universe.
By no means was I a Shaman in training. Being brought up in western (un)civilization, I had no real context for an enlightened experience or transcendence. I was just an alienated teen searching for meaning in a confusing and sometimes meaningless world. I was also an explorer, a psychonaut diving blindly into the abyss of the unknown, craving meaning and some kind of understanding no matter how fleeting it all may have seemed.
My mother’s side of the family is American Indian, so I had a bit of a context other than Anglo capitalism’s Affluenza as an outline of how to perceive the world. I also picked up a curious book called The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. These two things fed my thirst for following on an experimental path of using entheogens at a young age.
At the same time I have always done visual art, so it was natural that these two outlets of learning and expression would eventually cross paths. It was subtle at first - a sketch here, a drawing there. It actually took a while to break out of the parameters that I had built myself for the type of art I did..
Eventually my psychedelic experiences started seeping into my work and greatly contributed to my breaking out of my own preconceived ideas for the type of art I was capable of creating. My art started to come straight from me and from my spirit; before then I was not as confident in my own imagination..

VISIONARY REVUE

These experiences triggered and sparked my imagination to erupt, grow, and flourish, and helped me see things in a different way. I think plants or substances like mushrooms, Ayahuasca, or LSD are here to push people in their thinking process, quickening our personal evolution in a way. It helps with being self critical, in observing things, stepping out of oneself and shattering boundaries imposed by ourselves and society. That is why I continue to partake in entheogens in a ritualized context and use these substances as a tool for change and inspiration in my life and art.

AYAHUASCA PREMONITION
Bryan K. Ward

5 MEO DMT EXPERIENCE

It starts with an audio buzz in the ears similar to inhaling nitrous. Within seconds the buzz subsides into a full body relaxation with deep concentrated breathing, loosing any kind of connection to ones own body…my body disappears completely. I am no longer lying on a bed in a room; I am shooting through a wormhole of energy fully immersed in my inner space, a hyper consciousness that has left the “normal” world behind.
I remember thinking the most important thing is to not try and control what is happening. Thoughts and feelings intertwine, weaving in and out of one another, with every audio and visual emotion as one, every possible thought/emotion/ feeling being experienced at the same time.
There is the possibility of confusion, but I soon realize any fear needs to be embraced instead of resisted against; this ‘letting go’ is what allows one to fully process and take in the full immersion of the DMT experience.

My life literally flashes before my eyes, the beautiful to the ugly, feelings from love to hate, duality, paradox. In split seconds, processes that could take hours, months, years of contemplating resolve from confusion to understanding.
More flashes: of loved ones I’ve lost to those I still touch; concern and understanding for each and every one. Showers of love, compassion and empathy spread out like an explosion of energy - all the while an intense love for self and my relation to the world fully envelopes my being.
Suddenly I find my self in a waking lucid dream-like state. I am floating in the ocean, a dreamsea vast and dark, rising and falling with the ebb and flow of the rolling waves, the grey sky with a blanket of tumultuous clouds seething overhead. I am becoming the ocean…my body’s limbs morphed into four tentacles until my whole torso becomes like the arms of an octopus, then splitting again and again, so on and so forth.
I become a floating head with millions of tentacles weaving in and out of each other, reaching out, writhing and finally dissolving into liquid.

VISIONARY REVUE

I then find myself standing on the edge of the sea. I fly up into the sky - a crow soaring above in the winds, skimming the waves, rising up high over land and then diving down through the temperate rain forest into the earth.
I transform into the roots and branches of the trees, growing and twisting like knots, entangled in the soil, growing and stretching, thirsting for water and light.
An ancient intelligence washes over me: the wisdom of the elephant and whale consciousness compels me to acknowledge their importance to the planet and their relation to human survival.
My blood is American Indian and Celtic: patterns, knot work and motifs form and fade, influenced by my understanding of my blood roots, my perceived mixed-mutt culture. Images of a lone Bear feed my dreams, driven by the same will of strength to be myself and strong enough to resist the negative influence of others, resistance against what is not me. Solace in sorrow, accepting suffering as just a part of our evolution, perception and experiences in this life.
My art and music comes from the merciless flow of my passions, my desires, my being, my essence and my soul. My energy will live forever in the earth, in the universe into the void of nothingness. In this fluid dream, feeling this is the closest to death I can be, conscious that I could let my disembodied self go over the threshold beyond the pale of this understanding, I travel from the starlight of the cosmos to the vast blackness of nothing. I deliberately slow my ‘astral’ breathing and heart down, with every deep exhalation, to inch myself closer and closer to the edge: floating in this cold darkness between this life and death...
There is no breath. I hesitate. I am not ready for letting go completely.

RAINFOREST (EX)CRUCIATE:
From the Vine, a Blood offering to the Death King
Bryan K. Ward

FALL 2007

I gasp for air; it fills my lungs with new life, feeling it in every part of my body, deeper, into all my cells, rejuvenating my flesh and bones with each breath. I am filled with ultimate love for myself and my friends and family; infinite love washes over me.
Slowly my consciousness returns to my five sense reality. I become aware of my “real” body lying on a bed, in a room on this planet rotating endlessly through space. I feel contentment with my life, my choices, knowing the way I’ve chosen is the right path for me.

Bryan K. Ward

HER PATH
Bryan K. Ward

ANGEL: FALLEN... BROKEN
Bryan K. Ward

VISIONARY REVUE

BRYAN K. WARD
BIOGRAPHY

I am currently residing in Seattle with my daughter. My time is spent drawing, painting, creating sounds in a band (blacknoisecannon.com) and being a single parent.I’ve been doing visual art since I can remember, influenced by the Surrealists and the discovery of Entheogens at a young age. More recently finding an affiliation with the ongoing and ever burgeoning Fantastic/Visionary art movement, through this I have been making connections and expanding horizons.Having been drawn to the shadow side of expressing myself I have been inclined at times to visualize death and darkness in my work, sometimes obvious, other times subtle. This process in creating my art is transformative, and reflects an evolution towards something within and yet beyond myself. As for any meaning in my work I think the beauty and power of visual art is that it's open to the individual’s interpretation. Question what you see, consider what you don't, draw your own conclusions.